


Into the Tomb with me

by uro_boros



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5974414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uro_boros/pseuds/uro_boros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At sixteen, Levi is a fighter, and the worst kind of fighter at that, dirty tricks and low blows and anything to come out a little less broken than the other person. He nurses split lips and black eyes, something hot wound tight in his chest, an itch under his skin that only stops with the meaty thunk of flesh and bone against flesh and bone. </p><p>He’s aware he’s going to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Tomb with me

“Well,” says the corpse, blinking cloudy eyes at Levi and half-raised from the body bag, “this is unexpected.”

\--

At sixteen, Levi is a fighter, and the worst kind of fighter at that, dirty tricks and low blows and anything to come out a little less broken than the other person. He nurses split lips and black eyes, something hot wound tight in his chest, an itch under his skin that only stops with the meaty thunk of flesh and bone against flesh and bone. 

He’s aware he’s going to die.

He’s always been aware that he’s going to die. 

It’s not that fighting chases the thought away. It’s not that fighting hastens his death. It’s just a recognition, a subtle tilt to his thoughts -- none of this matters, really, because one day he’ll be dead, just like everyone else, and that, too, one day the world will be dead, nothing more than another dark spot in the galaxy. Even that wouldn’t last; it would expend itself, losing heat and energy, and then there would be nothing. 

At sixteen, Farlan calls him fatalistic, but it’s Isabel who grabs his hands and says that he’s more than broken bones and dying. At sixteen, Levi isn’t, not really, but he gets his GED and straightens out because she wants him to; because he will die one day, but for now, she’s alive, and that’s what matters.

When he decides to become a coroner, her reaction is to gawk for a bit and then shake her head. “It makes sense, I guess,” she says, and Farlan shrugs and has to agrees.

Over her bubblegum milkshake, she adds, “But don’t expect us to visit your work. Dead bodies, ew.”

\--

They do visit, but Levi keeps the dead bodies tucked away, out of their sight. It’s a fair compromise.

\--

At thirty-one, he’s good at his job.

His co-workers are quick to point it out. Levi’s efficient, orderly, and clean. 

One or two joke that he’s as cold as the bodies around him, and as sterile as the room. His co-workers get older; the joke gets older. It stops -- maybe they move on from the job or maybe they get tired of trying to pry a response out of him. Levi doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

Farlan dies. Isabel dies. He almost asks to be the one to take care of their bodies, but a doctor with messy hair and pointy elbows stops him.

“Levi,” she says, and he isn’t sure how she knows his name, “someone else will handle this.”

The way she says it makes it an order. Her name tag reads Dr. Hanji Zoe; she works in the hospital attached to the morgue. He still doesn’t know how she knows his name.

He take bereavement leave for three days, and sits in his apartment and cleans until his hands go raw and his knuckles crack and bleed. It’s not as satisfying as how they bled when he was sixteen, but he’s thirty-one now and doesn’t know how to pick fights anymore so he cleans some more.

He goes to their funerals and sits in very empty pews and thinks of how no one is mourning them and how the universe is vast and unfair. Dr. Hanji Zoe collects him with wet eyes and a sympathetic face.

“Why are you crying?” he asks her as she guides him out of the funeral home.

She daps at her eyes. “I’m crying for you,” she says, “with you,” and she touches his face. He realizes it’s hot and wet where her hand is, and that he’s crying too.

\--

At thirty-four, his existence is quiet.

Hanji brings him tea and sweets and takes him to lunch. She pushes her way into his apartment and into the morgue. She’s a pathologist and a good one.

She’s a friend. The years and her persistence make her one.

And at thirty-four, Levi examines a blonde corpse, male, pale because of bloodlessness; the toe-tag read Smith, Erwin when Levi looked at it. He leaves the bag open to write down a note -- an unusual cluster of purpling bruises on the neck -- and hears, “Well, this is unexpected.”

\--

Smith, Erwin is naked. Bodies in the morgue usually are. He seems to realize that fact slowly.

Levi doesn’t blame him. Reanimation does seem more pressing to take stock of than nudity in the long-run.

He’s heard of cases like this, living getting mixed up for dead. Hearts were fickle that way, as was life itself.

He isn’t sure what you’re supposed to say in this kind of situations, but what comes out is: “Congratulations, you’re alive.” 

Smith, Erwin looks at him then. His lips curl a little ruefully. “No,” he tells Levi, “I’m really not.”

\--

Smith, Erwin becomes Erwin, sitting on Levi’s couch and wrapped in a sheet. Levi’s clothes didn’t fit him -- the shirts nearly did; Levi was broader in the shoulder, but the sleeves were too short. They didn’t bother trying pants.

Erwin drinks tea. His chest is still. He’s not breathing, nor is his heart beating. Levi had checked. Three hours ago, they’d snuck out of the morgue together, Erwin in a pair of borrowed scrubs, Levi deleting traces of a corpse named Erwin Smith ever passing through his doors. He’d be more thorough about it tomorrow.

“You’re taking this well,” Erwin says. His toes are bare and curled into Levi’s carpet. 

“So are you,” he points out, and Erwin ducks his head and laughs.

“What’s stranger,” Erwin asks, “the man who accepts being dead or the man who accepts the man who accepts being dead?”

“Does it matter?” he asks back.

Erwin hums. “No, I guess not.”

Levi could explain: tell Erwin that life and death didn’t matter, that one day, even walking corpses would be gone, that he hadn’t cared about anything in a long time, when he peered at his friends in their caskets, more at peace in their deaths than they ever were in life. He could find a reason for this, make Smith, Erwin’s existence make sense, and all it would get him is what everything else gets him: nothing.

He doesn’t explain. He drinks tea and watches Erwin watch him.

Eventually, he retires to bed. In the morning, Erwin is where he left him the night before. 

“I don’t really know what to do with myself,” Erwin admits. 

Levi snorts, making his way into the kitchen. “Join the club.”

\--

Death has some effect on memory, because Erwin doesn’t remember how he died. He remembers bits of other things -- flashes of color, the warmth of winter fires, the way the air smells after a storm. 

“Was there anything after death?” Levi asks once. He doesn’t really need to know the answer, and isn’t surprised when Erwin frowns and murmurs no.

\--

He explains, one night.

And Erwin explains, too.

\--

Death was like sinking into the sea at its deepest point. 

\--

Levi thinks of dying, and it’s fine.

He thinks of Isabel and Farlan sinking into the sea and retches. His mouth tastes like saltwater and rot. It’s purely in his imagination. 

Erwin settles a hand on his back. It’s the only comfort he offers.

\--

Erwin is a quiet housemate and a neat one. Being dead removes much of the mess that living things create. His skin can’t flake and add to dust and he doesn’t eat -- the attempt with tea had turned out badly, though Levi never seeks to get the full explanation as to why. His worst vice is a longing for warmth; Levi’s gas and electric spikes because of Erwin’s fondness of putting his clothes in the dryer and wearing them freshly out, but the cost isn’t something he can’t handle.

He never rots, though Levi waits for it to happen one day, but cuts and bruises become permanent features on his body when they happen. They find out the hard way; Erwin’s pinky breaks and Levi sets the bone, but three months later, it still jots out at an unnatural angle to the rest of his hand. A bruise on his shin flowers sickly purple after a fall; a deep scratch on his wrist parts skin and spots black blood around Levi’s apartment until Levi stitches it so tightly that it can’t.

They minimize damages.

Erwin laughs. “I’m already dead,” he says, “would it matter if I died again?”

Levi freezes. The words hit him. He’s said similar things about himself.

“Yes,” he answers finally, voice firm, “it would.”

\--

“It would matter if you died, too,” murmurs Erwin one night when Levi’s supposed to be sleeping.

He isn’t, but he squeezes his eyes shut harder and pretends. In his chest, his heart thumps, very much a living thing.

\--

Erwin kisses him one morning, still wet and warm from his shower. It makes Erwin feel alive, though his skin rapidly cools exposed to the outside air.

His lips are soft and his mouth gentle. Levi’s never been kissed.

“Does this make me a necrophiliac,” he wonders aloud when Erwin pulls away. 

Erwin tilts his head. His eyes are a clouded blue, a film diluting their color. For the first time, Levi wants to know what they look like without the cover. His hands itch. “Do you consider me to be dead?” 

“Physically,” he trails off as Erwin twines their fingers together. “Physically, I have to.”

“Metaphysically then,” prompts Erwin gently. 

“I don’t believe in that,” Levi snorts, “but if I did, no. No, I don’t think you’re dead.” The world had many dead things, Levi among them, but not Erwin wasn’t one of them.

His hand is warm entangled with Levi’s. It’s an illusion, of course, Erwin’s body borrowing Levi’s own heat, but it’s enough.

It’s enough.


End file.
